HOT ANTICORRUPTION NEWS / Issue #57

- Rada adopted the anticorruption court draft law in the second reading;
- Rada decided on their candidate to NABU auditing commission;
- Results of technical assessment of NABU work will be presented on June 11;
- Finance Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk is dismissed;
- Attacks on the Healthcare Ministry team intensified;
- Odesa activist stabbed;
- AntAC launched a new project “Rating Reaper”;
- AntAC prevented misappropriation of public funds on procurements;
- West's anticorruption policy is spot on.

Draft Law On Anticorruption Court Is Adopted

2,5 years of work and with 315 votes the Rada adopted the anticorruption court draft law on June 7! This is an important step forward in the anticorruption reform!

You may see our preliminary analysis. As soon as the final text is published, we will immediately inform you should there be any discrepancies.

However, please, note that the adopted draft law No7440 does not actually establish the anticorruption court, but rather describes it. For the actual launch of the court, according to the Constitution, after prior consultations with the High Council of Justice the President has to submit to the Parliament a short draft law with just one article “The High AnticorruptionCourt is established and based in Kyiv”. This draft law should be submitted to the Parliament and approved as soon as possible.

NABU Auditor News

After the Committee violated the procedure and recommended the Rada to consider two candidacies for NABU auditor position - Volodymyr Vasylenko and Thomas Firestone, on June 7 the MPs appointed the former. Curiously, that two out of three members of the auditing commission will be human rights advocates. Also, during the interview in the committee Vasylenko mentioned that he will not work pro bono, though auditor's job is not paid.

Results of Technical Assessment of NABU Work To Be Presented On June 11

On June 11, 2018, there will be held a press conference on the results of performance of NABU and perspectives for its further development. NABU director Artem Sytnyk, as well as Robert Storch, Inspector General of the US National Security Agency, and Carlos Castresana,

member of the International Anti-Corruption Advisory Board of the EU Anti-CorruptionInitiative will take part in the briefing. More details.

Finance Minister Danyliuk Is Dismissed

On June 7, right after the adoption of theanticorruption court draft law and NABU auditor appointment the Rada dismissed Minister Oleksandr Danyliuk.

We are very grateful to him for being a persistent driver of the reforms, acting according to the values and principles, blocking the schemes of embezzlement of state budget, launching a transparent VAT-refund system, attempting to substitute a notorious tax militia with a Europe-style financial investigations agency - and this is far from an exhaustive list! Good luck, Minister Danyliuk, with your further activities for the sake of Ukraine's transformation!

Attacks On Healthcare Ministry Team Intensified

Attacks on Ulana Suprun, her team, the ongoing healthcare reform, and specifically international procurements of medicines also intensified recently. Thus, Yuliya Tymoshenko started to challenge international procurements, demanding their revision in 2015-2018. In the meantime, in 2017 this reform alone

helped to save 40% of budget, primarily allocated for purchase of the medications. Consequently more people received quality treatment.

Suprun's deputy Oleksandr Linchevskyi is put under huge pressure too. Thus, his words about the treatment of people with cancer were torn out of context and manipulated. He said that people with a severe stage of cancer have no chances to survive in Ukraine, they should be treated abroad, while the phrase was cut and communicated to the Ukrainian society as if Linchevskyi meant these people are seriously sick and they will die anyway. This artificially caused an outrage in the society. Deputy Minister was attacked by members of the Poroshenko's bloc, Batkivshchyna, Lyashko's party and the Rada Healthcare Committee, while representatives of the latter two institutions even attended the hearings of the Government to demand Linchevskyi's resignation.

Odesa Activist Stabbed

Vitaly Ustymenko, the leader of the Odesa branch of the AutoMaidan non-governmental group and a vehement critic of Odesa Mayor Hennady Trukhanov, was attacked and stabbed in Odesa on June 5.More details.

AntAC Launched A New Project
"Rating Reaper"

This is an instrument of imposing personal political responsibility on Members of Parliament for blocking the reforms or covering up corrupt officials. If an MP bailed a briber, became suspect in the case of the NABU, registered or voted for an anti-reform draft law or did not support lifting parliamentary immunity of a corrupt fellow MP, they will get into this web-site.

The project functions as follows: one can choose an MP or a specific corrupt misconduct and donate any amount of money on sharing the story about it. Using targeted Facebook advertisements, we show users in MP’s constituency the information about their corrupt behavior.

During the first day of operation Ukrainians donated sufficient amount of money to tell the voters about the MP Golubov who bailed Odesa corrupt mayor Trukhanov and the MP Berezenko, who helped to protect from justice several figurants in NABU and PGO cases.